Evaluation of Corporate Governance Practices on Financial Performance of Selected Insurance Firms in Nigeria

In Nigeria, particularly in the insurance industry, the issue of corporate governance practices came into life with the increasing trend of frauds, financial scandals, bankruptcies, nonclaims settlements, and other unethical related practices. Therefore, the intensity at which corporate governance practices affect firm’s performance remains unclear because of the predominant theoretical perspective in explaining the positive implications of corporate governance practices on financial performance. Thus, the research objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of corporate governance practices on financial performance with specific reference to some selected insurance companies in Nigeria. The study adopted ex-post facto research designs. Nine insurance firms were purposively selected to be included in this study. The hypothesis was tested using secondary data from annual reports of selected insurance companies. The test of the hypothesis revealed R2 of 0.529. This depicted a significant influence of independent variable (corporate governance practices) on the dependent variable (profitability) and the p-value. The study recommended among others that there should be corporate accountability movement in the insurance industry through well framed mandatory corporate reporting covering all aspects of social environment and economic performance. This will be pursued logically by having a good corporate code of governance to give direction.